2017 in brief: My mother’s life
was celebrated with an excellent funeral. I reduced my work load and became a
student again. I holidayed with friends in the French Alps, Italy and Tanzania.
I enjoyed literary and music festivals in Wales, England, Scotland and
Indonesia.
Willy died peacefully, aged 92,
after a short illness in spring. She was in her room at Glanenig residential home
with excellent palliative care. Her room
looked like a Dutch interior painting with her bed, pictures and spring
sunlight pouring in. Her relatives and godchildren had visited her in her last
weeks. She would have enjoyed the
positive celebration of her life in Llowes Church and Clyro tea party. Family
and friends from across her life came, celebrating her medical work, her life
as a vicar’s wife and her retirement in the Wye valley. Thanks to everybody who
supported me then. I enjoy her home in Wales and the festivals Hay literary and
Brecon Jazz. Modernising the home is my
next project.
I holidayed with Les, Vera and
Riff (dog) in their flat in St Gervais. Every day we walked out on the
mountains and lunched with the Mont Blanc glaciers in view. We enjoyed unusual
evening concerts at the Mont Blanc baroque festival; notably an Irish quartet
playing traditional Irish harp carried up to a ski landing stage. I spent a few days in Paris with my friends
Steph and Julia. Each time I visit Paris I follow the Time Out book of Paris
walks, and visit new areas. This time I saw the Adam
Wickiewicz museum about Polish émigrés to
Paris. I had 4 days in Amsterdam,
catching up with friends and family and having lunch on the very trendy
Amsterdam tower with Willemien and Bart and family. My time with family and
friends was restorative but also stimulating.
February was my last month on
call consultant for infectious diseases at UCLH having completed 22 years in
service (appointed 1995) and I am happy to be passing the baton on. I still do
my specialist leprosy and skin clinics at HTD.
MY NHS job has changed hugely with more patients, more investigations
and electronic records. Then we
provided a specialist service in a different hospital with no ITU and the
patients were travellers, migrants and missionaries. Now we work in the 16
floor modern block and are part of the teams providing acute infection services
for Camden and the patients are drug users and complex elderly and many have
drug resistant bugs. We have bright
young doctors working with us but the teams are more fragmented. I was the first women consultant in the
service, now I have 4 female colleagues.
My Mondays are free and I studied
non-fiction writing at City University.
I loved the stimulation of being a student but still did my homework at
the last moment. My fellow students were interesting; age range 26-70 with
backgrounds in finance, academia, and charity work. We read out our homework in class and I
learnt the power of storytelling. The election and the Grenfell Tower fire
became topics for our written work. My first published piece was my mother’s
obituary (The Guardian June 24). Our
tutor Peter Forbes was a published poet who encouraged us. I plan to write
stories about leprosy.
I acted in a drama “Deeds not
words” recreating the all female suffragette run military hospital in Covent
Garden in 1917, This was an immersive drama and the audience came into the
space of the Swiss church and experienced the life of the hospital. Wounded soldiers were carried in from the
street; bandages were in short supply. I played Helen Chambers a pathologist
who worked on treatments for wounds. I
enjoyed the teamwork and creating the atmosphere of the hospital and I
identified with the pathologist. (photos on my blog).
Work continues to be busy. The
ENLIST global consortium linking the top leprosy research centres is developing
under the leadership of my colleague Steve Walker. Our last meeting was in
Indonesia. My mother was born there when my grandfather was a water engineer in
Java. His passion was improving sanitation so the working toilets pleased me. Indonesian
food is a treat for me. I had a long weekend in Bali and my stay in Ubud, the
cultural centre over lapped with the literary festival and I enjoyed talks on
short story writing, seeing photos of the spice islands. I tried out a bamboo
bike. The volcano nearly erupted just after I left.
This year has been depressing
politically. Brexit will have a negative impact on my life because as a doctor,
academic and scientist I experience many benefits from the EU. I have been active in the local Labour party,
fortunately Momentum is not active in our ward. I am sorry that Corbyn is not providing a
robust anti-Brexit opposition. Three of
my friends who live in Europe have become EU citizens. Trump’s presidency is
turning out worse than I imagined. Seeing the rise of intolerance has been
sobering.
Nina Goldman lived in the house
for 14 months as a DTMH student and then worked on the ITU at Kings. She was
accepted by MSF as a medical volunteer. She is working in Bangladesh in a camp with
500 000 Rohingya refugees, many with malnutrition and trauma. She manages a team of Bangladeshi doctors. Working
with MSF allows her to implement solutions that would take months otherwise.
MSF have been tweeting her reports. https://www.msf.org.uk/dr-nina-goldman
I feel connected to the crisis.
Gardening in Arlington Square has
been fun and maybe our 50 acers helped us win the prize for best small park in
London. I improved my own garden by having the big trees taken out and the
bricks put on a firm foundation, it looks Mediterranean. There were three weddings
this year, my friends Simon and Maggie who had a book themed wedding in
Westminster and then Faye Goldman and Tom married in Hackney with music themes.
I enjoyed exhibitions marking the
100th anniversary of the Russian revolution, and I am inspired to plan a long
trip exploring the country. Many
exhibitions captured the enthusiasm of the revolution and then huge downside of
Stalinist repression for artists and journalists. My best play was “The Ferryman” by Jez
Butterworth. Set in N. Ireland the play captures several generations
experiences of civil war. It had resonance far beyond N Ireland. Women’s achievements were celebrated in the
film “Hidden Figures” about the bright black female American mathematicians
behind the NASA space programme. The ballet “Rain” performed in Edinburgh to Steve Reich’s “music for
18 instruments” was a wonderful array of running figures. Shashi Tharoor ‘s
book “Inglorious Empire” was a devastating critique of the British Raj in India
which failed Indians on many levels. I felt embarrassed for our colonial sins.
Enjoy the Solstice and may 2018
be a good year.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jun/14/wilhelmina-lockwood-obituary
